Trial and retribution
by Meep meep
Summary: Sirius is given a trial during his time at prison. What he says has never before been heard. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
1. Innocence

Disclaimer: they don't belong to me.

It's easy to cry.

I don't mean that it's easy to weep, but that it's easy to cry. Subtle difference.

I've cried. I try not to make a habit of it, but I'll say that much. I've cried.

It's harder for me now, in here. I cried the first night I spent here, really cried, as in the floods-of-tears, cry-yourself-dry full blown sobs. But not without reason.

I was in mourning, for them. For my almost-brother, and my almost-sister-in-law. But not just them, no, but for my lover and close friend.

For another too. Not that he deserves my tears, rare as they are, no. But for how I believed he'd been. The person I thought he was, the person he could've, no _should've_ been. The person I thought I knew, way back when, I thought was my friend.

We were never as close as we should have been; never had that relationship that the rest of us shared- where we knew the other better than we could claim to know ourselves. But we were close, or so I thought. I suppose in seventh year, we drifted a bit- I had the protective thing going on, protecting my almost-brother not to mention balancing that with exam stress and a blossoming relationship. I was panicky all the time, stressed out. I was trying so hard to keep my best friend from falling. Because I knew without me, without us, he would fall, and it would hurt.

In a time when I probably should have been protecting and looking after my interests and myself I was protecting someone else's. My grades (low at the best of times) were slipping and gods knew my health was ebbing with them. Teachers looked like they understood, some of them anyway, but it was only their pity I saw. Pity was something I could never cope with. So used to being my own person, and being damned good at it, I came to rely on him, my brother. We were holding each other up, but it was inevitable that soon one would fall, and the other with him. When school ended, I felt relieved. I didn't consider for a moment that maybe I needed that environment- I had no family; instead I had friends who acted as my family. But leaving there meant leaving that family and that was when I started to decline. I got through my apprenticeship because my friends were still pretty closely knit around me- we all went to the same college, and we shared rooms (two to each) right beside each other.

We finished college 3 months early, and I was made an integral person to my almost-brother. I was the only person standing between his family and certain death. Cunningly, or so I thought, I switched with someone, and kept a watch from a little more distanced post, watching the protector, helping to protect him as well as those he was protecting. I took my eye off the ball for one second and lo! The ball is gone.

So I hunted down the protector. He squealed all sorts of lies at me, spewing his venom to the people around. Then he disappeared, off into the night to somewhere I couldn't reach him.

Nobody thought I was innocent. Convicted without a trial, I was in prison before I turned 20.

So here I am, telling this to you, at the ripe age of 23. I should be out and looking after my godson – my almost-brother's baby – but I'm not.

I am a man with a story to tell; and so I will present it, with the hope of belief and a trial so I can be released. This is my story, but first I must make you understand one thing.

My name is Sirius Black, and I'm an innocent man


	2. Betrayal

_Disclaimer: characters aren't mine!_

It's so easy to forget who you are in the midst of betrayal. Everyone is a suspect, your best friends become enemies.

But it's always someone you didn't think would do it; but when it's done you realise they were the only ones who could've done it. They hang around with hot shots to make themselves seem cool, they're small, pudgy people with rat-like eyes whom you could never suspect. They depend on us, they couldn't betray us.

But in the game of life and death they're the ones who'll screw you over, because their life is more important.

And it's someone like this who put me in here. Someone I made the mistake of trusting. I made the worst mistake possible – not only did I trust him with my life, but with the lives of three others. I guess everyone can see how that turned out.

I won't deny that if I'd had the chance I'd have killed him. I still would, the dirty bastard deserves it. I don't care if my name is cleared. Actually, I do so that's a lie. I know, well knew, Lily's sister and I don't want my godson to grow up there. I'm not saying I'd be a good parent – I'm all over the place, and responsibility was never really my thing – but _anything_ is better than that.

I've no doubt I'll find him. Yes the world believes him to be dead but I know better.

Lily never trusted him. She said she'd never trust someone who turned into a rat. I should've listened.

I don't know why I didn't pass secret keeper to Remus. I trusted him, far more than I ever trusted Peter. I think it was something Dumbledore said – to pas it to Remus would invite complications. What would happen at the full moon? Would he survive the spell? I might say I thought he was the traitor, but it's untrue. I think it might've been that I wanted him safe.

But by protecting him, I gave James to them.

I'm not sure when all of this began. The betrayal, heartache and anxiety. But it got so bad, it went beyond breaking point. Stretched to our limits knowing one of us was betraying the others we fell.

I never once believed it was James. He had a family, a cause. He had a reason to live, but not reason enough for a betrayal. He never suspected it was me for an instant, we were too close. Ironic that it was this trust that, in part, led to his death.

I dream about it sometimes, no, not dream. Remember, twisted memories no less bitter for time. If only I'd been there, if only I'd not switched, if only I'd trusted my instincts. If only.

I never thought it of Remus. I don't think I ever thought him capable of such an act. No, I knew and trusted him more than most. But I suppose I'm a suspicious character. No, I knew it wasn't him.

That always left Peter. But I didn't want to think it of him. He was a close friend, gods forbid that I accused him and was wrong. No I didn't want it to be him, so in my mind it wasn't. It couldn't be.

But what I don't tell anyone, what I have never even let Remus know, was that I was there. Well, for the last part anyway.

I ran in just after he finished James. I ran up to the nursery, rushing to Lily's aid. Two seconds too late. He didn't finish me, I guess I was a pawn in his great scheme. He threw me into a wall and had me watch through the blackness creeping in on the edges of my vision as he tried to take Harry.

I was almost completely useless. The one thing I did do right was cast that spell. Yes, I cast the spell, not Lily.


	3. Cold hard fear

This cell confines everything, but I'm used to that. Used to the confines of buildings, used to the crashing sound of prison doors slamming in my face. I'm used to the confines of living, too, trapped by disappointments and broken dreams. Shackled by my own bitter failings. Yeah, I'm used to that.

I'm used to not fitting in, black sheep that I am. I coped with the stares and the whispers, the biting little comments and the painful rumours.

I'm used to interrogation, used to blame. Used to the consequences of other people's actions. I got used to people believing I was guilty. I managed, even though the people I loved believed I could do that, thought that I _did_ do that, and never once questioned why. So yeah. I'm used to that.

In here you get tortured. But no one on the outside understands that, because there's no physical mark on you, but you still get tortured. Your mind gets ripped apart with misery and cold. People say that it's the guilt that makes you lose it, but really it's the cold. No one understands that, understands what it's like in here. No one but the inmates that is.

I've been in here, in this very cell, for so long. It's been so many years since I was outside these walls. I look alright to you, don't I? To you, I look practically fine, your average Joe. But inside I'm dying. I've been dying for a while now. The cold has frozen me, the cold and a good portion of guilt. The outsiders, the people like you, think that I'm better off sane. That I'm lucky. They don't know anything. I'd rather be mad. It would make my life a hell of a lot easier.

But even knowing what I know; being able to see everything in hindsight; even hearing Lily saying 'It's not your fault'; even with all that, nothing takes away the guilt away.

No, I never laid a finger on them, and I know that's what you were just thinking. If I had, then I wouldn't be talking to you. That's the problem, isn't it? That I never touched them.

Because if I had, then I would be just like the rest of them in here. Hopelessly, inescapably and irreparably insane.

If I'd killed the, I wouldn't feel like this. I wouldn't hear the constant streams of 'what if's, wouldn't be haunted by the image of the open door and what horrors lay behind it. I've killed people before – self-defence and protection work rather than hits mostly (and lets all give a big Hoo-rah to the government for _that_) – and I don't feel even half as bad about those as I do about this.

This isn't just about murder, its also about trust. I trusted him, _we_ trusted him, and he betrayed that. I trusted him! Why did I ever trust him? The perfect plan (or so I thought then) backfired and now I've lost the only people I ever really cared about. The people who were closer than family to me. I've lost them all – 2 to death, one to Him and one to the belief that I killed my best friend.

Ironic, that once again I'm without a friend when I need one most.

But no one believes me, so what does it matter? You don't believe me, the wizarding world at large doesn't believe me. Not even Rem believed me. So the people who see or hear this certainly don't. They never have, so why should that change?

My name is hated, no _despised_, and no matter where I go I'm wanted dead. But it doesn't matter, none of that matters because here I am. Stuck on an island being tortured just a little bit more, edging me that much closer to breaking point, every extra minute I stay here.

And even if I did escape, even if I somehow managed to get out, there is nowhere on this earth that I could go.

If you listen you can hear them crying. When night falls, when the dark comes, you don't need to listen to hear them scream. Sometimes you hear the stronger ones shaking the bars on their doors or clawing at the walls, but that stops after about a month. They all go quiet in the end.

Some days I think I'm just like them. I wake up and I can see their blood on my hands, so real I can smell it, can even taste it in the back of my throat. I hear them scream and I see them die. But the blood is the worst, like a big red marker on my hand that won't come off. Out damn spot and all that. And you're gagging and choking, trying to get rid of the taste but you just can't, and the taste is overwhelming.

And some days, I wake up screaming


	4. Growth

I tried to explain it to them before. When I first got here, I tried to explain, tried to tell someone, what really happened. But no one heard, no one would listen. They turned a deaf ear to everything I said, as if they'd heard it all so many times they'd blocked out the noises we were making. Blocked everything out.

So no one heard my story. I was never given a trial, never given a chance, so it shouldn't have bothered me that no one in the prison would listen to what I had to say. But it did, bother me I mean. It really did. Not one person in the world cared enough about me to give a damn. And if not me, then cared enough about the justice system in this country to care that all the minister wanted was a scapegoat. Someone to take the fall for them.

Because it was the governments fall, Dumbledore's fall. Knowing about the prophecy, knowing about the boys and Voldemort's plans for them, they still failed to protect them. Failed to protect the both of them. And yeah, I'll say it, failed to protect me. Perhaps even failed to protect the entire community, because old Voldie is still out there, as is that worm Peter.

And so it goes on, ever growing, ever escalating, until the only thing we know about is the fact that this country is in big trouble. That we're all in big trouble.

I was offered the chance to become a Death Eater, did you know that? No, I'll bet you didn't, though it does make me look bad, doesn't it? Yeah, I was offered a position.

I backhanded him. Hard. I also told him in no uncertain terms where he could shove his narrow minded bigotry as I ran as fast and as far as I possibly could. I don't know how the hell I managed to get away. Perhaps this whole scheme with Peter was planned from that moment on – if they couldn't get me, get the weakest person you could find and make sure that he gets the job done.

And he did, for the most part. My boy still lives on, because he is my boy, at least in part. And if I ever get out, proved innocent or otherwise, I will do my damnedest to help him get _his_ job done. But I've no doubt that he can do it on his own. He is, after all, James' son.

And combine that with Lily, and he will not just succeed, he will succeed and dance on Voldemort's grave.

I just hope that if I do get out, he doesn't hate me as much as he should. Because if I were him I'd want to kill me, bury me, dig me up and kill me all over again. Perhaps when he finds out the truth – when everyone finds out the truth – then he'll forgive me.

Perhaps Remus will forgive me and stop pitying Peter.

And yeah, okay, perhaps the Dementors will have a picnic.


	5. Hopes

If you look up long enough, all you can see is the stars, and not the darkness in between. Just a sky full of twinkling lights, shining on everyone's faces. But then you blink, and all you see is darkness, interrupted by sporadic glitters.

That's how it feels now – I used to have a life that was just stars, just happiness. But then I blinked, and that world crashed down around me. I'm stuck in a new world where there are few lights in the darkness, because I lost hold of all the brightness.

And nothing hurts quite as much as that.

In the brightness, there lives happiness and beauty and, gods, love. Hope. Peace. But in the darkness, there is only tears, tears and madness. Anger. Desperation.

But I guess you never really let go of the brightness…there are still glimmers – a sparkle's worth of hope, if you will. And that's the only hope I have left. Places like these, you may not have guessed, have never been the type to inspire hope.

So the sky becomes the only representative I have for it.

I always want to see the sky. Trapped in here, you can't see it, but back when I was free…back then I loved to look at the sky.

Me and Rem, we used to sneak out the dorms at college to look at the stars. I miss times like that – times when we weren't all wrapped up in plots and death, blissfully unaware of the world outside.

I miss being that young…gods, it was only 4 years ago. Four of the longest years in my life. Four of the hardest, too.

Our lives, I guess, are full of chances. Opportunities. Things that come once and we have to jump for them…just don't jump for the wrong one. Because those…those put you in places like these.

I don't suppose you ever had those moments…no, I didn't think so. Moments where the world is right and everybody is happy and no one worries about tomorrow. Full of bright tomorrows and hazy ever-afters. Something to while away the darkness on nights like these.

The only place I ever felt was home was when I was with them. It doesn't seem right to have a brother betray you like that, but there's nothing I can do about that…not while I'm still in here.

So I guess, once again, I must return to the skies. Because when I can see it, that is when I can live again. That, my friends, is when I'm free.

And under that sky, there WILL be a second chance for me. And that is what we call a sporadic hope, just like all the small sporadic stars. Just like an off-chance of a clue, the off-chance that I might escape.

Or hell, the off-chance that anyone will ever believe what I'm saying.


End file.
